Well, it was the end of the world in last week's Mad Men 3.12, in every way for most of our major players, especially for Don. Tonight's surprising, satisfying altogether brilliant Season 3 finale reversed that. It was the best of times, for everyone, especially including Don, especially regarding his business. And as for his personal life - I'll get to that.Taking care of business first: Don turns the absorption of Sterling Cooper by McCann into a tour de force triumph of the best of Ste... Read Full Story

A brief reminder about why a public option in health care is so important:Insurance companies are in business to make money, or financially profit from their work. The time-honored way of maximizing profit is straightforward: increase income and reduce costs. In terms of health care, this translates into raising the cost of health care to businesses and consumers, and turning away or refusing to pay for as many claims for health care as are legally permitted. In other words, a health care... Read Full Story

The sweeping winds of November brought as an episode of FlashForward - 1.7 - that may be better then even the pilot.It starts with a scene which in part is actually close to the end of the episode - that is, the end of the piece of the present we are seeing unfold each week. We also saw a significant part of the past, and of course some flashforward time in the future. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.That opening brings a woman with two children on a beautiful morning. She fi... Read Full Story

Never underestimate Soviet science. In reality, they got out into space before we did in the 1950s. In the intersections of science and science fiction, the Soviets experimented with mental telepathy and all kinds of things. Who knows what they may have accomplished, or what strange forces walked through the doors they opened.Tonight's Fringe 2.6 considered one of them - actually, a possibility that the U.S. was concerned about, regarding our own astronauts. They were quarantined at first... Read Full Story

Well, I've often said that truly good combinations of mystery and comedy are as scarce as hen's teeth, and none do it better than Bones, as tonight's episode 5.6 about a murder in a chicken coop so tastily shows.The chicken part led to fine puns, which I'll just let simmer without pulling apart. And there was also a pig in this episode - not the male chauvinist kind, but a real pig - which provided the emotional foundation of the story.Angela, who was been abstinent for months, is channeling... Read Full Story

Kenneth Johnson's original 1983 mini-series V - along with its 1984 sequel V: The Final Battle - was oddly one of my favorite television shows. Actually, it still is. But I say "oddly," because although the story was trite - aliens landing on Earth, claiming they want to help us, only to eat us - the media savvy and political implications were compelling.Damon Knight's 1950 short story "To Serve Man," adapted into one of the most enduring Twilight Zone episodes in 1962, told the story best.... Read Full Story

Poor Dexter was on the couch in 4.6 - the shrink's couch, brought there for couples counseling by Rita, concerned about their lack of communication. She of course doesn't know the tenth of it, and when things work out just fine at the end of the episode - Dex is moving his stuff into a shed right next to their house - she's as clueless about Dex's dark side as ever.I'm a little worried, though, that Dex's trophies - the slides with blood samples - will sooner or later get discovered. Their... Read Full Story

Skeeter Davis's The End of the World played under the closing credits of Mad Men 3.12 tonight, and it came pretty close to that in many, but not all, ways...We knew it would be coming. But the logical time was the Season 3 finale - which will be on next week. Instead, Mad Men surprised us with a kick in the heart tonight, which started as a cold day with no heat in the offices of Sterling Cooper, proceeded to too much heat being pumped out, and soon showed us the television in Harry's offic... Read Full Story

A softly compelling episode 1.6 of FlashForward tonight, double slits across the universe, or, more precisely, an episode that started with Simon (Dominic Monaghan) talking about Young's double-slit experiment (which showed that light is both waves and particles) and ended with Rufus Wainright's wonderful rendition of one of my favorite Beatles songs, John Lennon's "Across the Universe".The wave and particle duality is, in our reality, part of the paradox of quantum mechanics, because, ordina... Read Full Story

My wife and I just got home from an afternoon showing of This Is It - just in time to see the World Series, but I wanted to write this first.What a wonderful, heartfelt, inspiring, original movie. All of it was great, here are some of the highights for me:.Michael Jackson and Mekia Cox dancing a kick-ass, erotic The Way You Make Me Feel - and seeing how much the other dancers and singers were enjoying how much Michael was getting in it. This was one of the inspiring threads throughout the ... Read Full Story